''Hippocampus nalu'', the Sodwana pygmy seahorse, African pygmy seahorse or Honeypot seahorse, is a South African species of

pygmy seahorse The pygmy seahorses comprise several species of tiny seahorse in the syngnathid family or Syngnathidae (seahorses and pipefish). Family Syngnathidae is part of order Syngnathiformes, which contains fishes with fused jaws that suck food into tubu ...

in the family

Syngnathidae The Syngnathidae is a family of fish which includes seahorses, pipefishes, and seadragons (''Phycodurus'' and ''Phyllopteryx''). The name is derived from grc, σύν (), meaning "together", and (), meaning "jaw". The fused jaw is one of the tra ...

Discovery

The discovery of the species, which inhabits the waters of

Sodwana Bay Sodwana Bay is a bay in South Africa on the KwaZulu Natal north coast, between St. Lucia and Lake Sibhayi. It is in the Sodwana Bay National Park, and the Maputaland Marine Reserve, and is a popular recreational diving destination. The term is ...

South Africa South Africa, officially the Republic of South Africa (RSA), is the southernmost country in Africa. It is bounded to the south by of coastline that stretch along the South Atlantic and Indian Oceans; to the north by the neighbouring countri ...

, was revealed by an international team of researchers in May 2020. This small

is the first known

that lives in the water around

Africa Africa is the world's second-largest and second-most populous continent, after Asia in both cases. At about 30.3 million km2 (11.7 million square miles) including adjacent islands, it covers 6% of Earth's total surface area ...

. When a diver from the region gave a tip to the researchers, a team of the researchers later discovered this

. The team that made this discovery arrived in

to look for the pygmy pipehorse and unintentionally found this new species.

Description

''Hippocampus nalu'' is quite similar to '' H. pontohi'' and '' H. japapigu'' in appearance and colouration, with adults having a honey-brown coloured skin with an overlay of white irregular reticulation and a reddish tail, and juveniles having a darker colouration. Like most syngnathids, their colouration helps them to camouflage with their surrounding habitat, as well as with algae. The ''Hippocampus nalu's'' highly different spine morphology along the superior trunk ridge also differentiates the species from its fellow pygmy seahorse. Being a pygmy seahorse,'' H. nalu'' is very small, with juveniles being ~10 mm long and adults growing up to a length of 2 centimetres.

Habitat

This species is currently only known to occur in shallow coastal waters, at depths between 12 and 17 meters that contain flat sandstone-based

coral reefs A coral reef is an underwater ecosystem characterized by reef-building corals. Reefs are formed of Colony (biology), colonies of coral polyp (zoology), polyps held together by calcium carbonate. Most coral reefs are built from stony corals, wh ...

and short algal turfs.

Gallery

File:Hippocampus nalu (10.3897-zookeys.934.50924) Figure 5.jpg, ''Hippocampus nalu'' in situ, a holotype female, Sodwana Bay, South Africa. File:Hippocampus nalu (10.3897-zookeys.934.50924) Figure 7.jpg, ''Hippocampus nalu'' in situ; juvenile, approximately 10 mm SL, Sodwana Bay, South Africa.

References

nalu Marine fish of South Africa Taxa named by Richard Smith Fish described in 2020 {{Syngnathiformes-stub